1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a group of compounds, i.e., specific branched-chain fatty acids, and pharmaceutically acceptable salts and derivatives thereof, with significant anticancer activities, and methods of treating cancer. The invention also relates to a process of producing fermentation products containing said specific branched-chain fatty acids, using specific bacteria strains, preferably in industrial facilities.
2. Description of the Background
Carcinoma is one of the most serious diseases threatening human's health and life. So far the predominant treatments to cancer patients are radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Both have certain toxicity or side effects on humans while suppressing cancer cell growth or killing cancer cells. Therefore extensive investigations have been carried out in order to find an effective anti-carcinogen with minimum side effects and toxicity.
In 1987, when the inventor cultured K562 leukemia cell lines in the laboratory, cells in a culture flask were found to have completely disappeared 48 hours after being contaminated by a kind of rod bacteria. Those rod bacteria were then intentionally harvested and purified, and incubated in soybean media with appropriate inorganic salts. It was found in later animal studies that the fermentation solution effectively inhibited tumor growth with no toxicity or side effects. In the decade since then, thousands of cancer patients, including advanced stage cancer patients, have been treated with the oral liquid developed from this fermentation solution. These include leukemia, tongue cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, gastric cancer, hepatocarcinoma, melanocarcinoma, renal cancer, esophagus cancer and pancreas cancer patients. Most of them have responded to the oral liquid, such as by symptom improvement, tumor shrinkage or even complete disappearance. Many of these patients are still alive today. The cases included patients in China, Japan, Korea, the United States, and many other countries.
In order to discover the active components in the fermentation solution that play a key role in killing cancer cells, persistent investigations have been carried out for the last ten years. In this period many books and papers were published worldwide trying to explain the anticancer activity of this fermentation solution. Most of these reports suggested that some soybean isoflavones (e.g. genistein, daidzein and saponin) from the soybean media contributed to the anticancer activities of this fermentation solution. On the other hand, some clinical trials indicated that the anticancer activities of soybean isoflavones were not great enough to explain the anticancer effects of the fermentation solution. The inventor has isolated many compounds from the fermentation solution and revealed that the anticancer activities of the solution were largely contributed by 13-methyltetradecanoic acid and 12-methyltetradecanoic acid. Further investigations discovered that other members of the family of branched-chain fatty acids also had significant tumor-inhibition effects. So far there are no other reports in the literature regarding the anticancer activity of specific branched-chain fatty acids.